CANNES, May 14 — US filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun’s new horror film, “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma”, was borne ‌of a desire to remake a genre beloved by many despite its troubling aspects, the director told Reuters before its Cannes Film Festival premiere on Wednesday.

Some horror films, including the slasher subgenre popularised by “Halloween”, have been criticised as transphobic because they equate gender nonconformity with mental illness or danger, and use it as a source of shock or fear.

Examples include the characters Norman Bates in “Psycho” or Buffalo Bill in “Silence of the Lambs.”

“I grew up in love with those films, and I don’t think ‌I’m the only trans person who found themselves oddly comforted by these depictions ⁠of the transsexual monster, even while ⁠those depictions are obviously very troubling,” Schoenbrun said.

“(They) ⁠also instilled in me a ⁠deep internalized transphobia that ⁠a huge part of early transition involved getting over,” added the director.

The World of Camp Miasma 

“Teenage Sex and Death,” Schoenbrun’s third feature, was selected ⁠to open the festival’s second-tier Un Certain Regard category.

Hannah Einbinder, from TV series “Hacks”, stars as a screenwriter who visits the mysterious “final girl” actor from the first film in the fictional “Camp Miasma” slasher franchise, played by Gillian Anderson, to bring her on to a new reboot.

Their relationship quickly deepens into ⁠an exploration of sex and body image as they sense that the “Camp Miasma” killer, Little Death, has started to awaken again at ⁠the bottom of the campside lake, in a blending of reality and fiction.

Einbinder ⁠said she ⁠related to the film’s themes of liberation from shame and embracing desire, and how difficult it can be to feel out of place in one’s own body, ‌especially in sexual situations.

“I think everybody experiences that, and it’s really not often talked about, especially in the context of a sapphic relationship,” she said. — Reuters 

 

 

 

MADRID, May 14 — Real Madrid officially started their electoral process today, after president Florentino Perez announced his decision to call elections, in which he will stand.

There is a 10-day window, until May 23, for the submission of candidacies, Madrid said in a statement.

Among the requirements to be a candidate are having been a club member for 20 years and providing a guarantee of 187 million euros (US$219m), equivalent to 15 per cent of the club’s annual budget, which must be backed by personal assets.

Perez, who was re-elected unopposed in January 2025 for a four-year term, announced at a press conference on Tuesday that he will run again.

Spanish media report Enrique Riquelme, the president of the water and energy group Cox, is considering entering the race.

In a letter published by several outlets in Spain, the renewable energy businessman asked Perez for more time to potentially prepare a candidacy.

”When I ran in the 2000 elections, I didn’t ask for more time; I ran and I won,” said Perez in an interview on television channel La Sexta yesterday. 

If multiple candidates stand the electoral board will announce the date and place of the elections in due course.

If no one else comes forward, Perez, 79, would retain his post, as happened in the 2013, 2017, 2021 and 2025 elections.

The Spanish businessman was first elected as Madrid president in 2000, overseeing the club’s Galactico era, and resigned in 2006.

Since Perez returned in 2009, Madrid have won five Spanish league titles and a remarkable six European cups, among other silverware. — AFP

 

 

If Jane Schoenbrun is feeling the pressures of being their generation’s highest-profile trans filmmaker, it shows in only the most enjoyably defiant of ways in Un Certain Regard opener “Teenage Sex and Death in Camp Miasma.” A steamy stew of sex, death, VHS and junk food, as though workshopped by Eros, Thanatos, Colonel Sanders and the […]

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